A Shiny New Year to Plan the Fun!

It's so exciting to start out a new, bright and shiny year! It's all bright and full of promise! If last year sucked, you can say emphatically – that was LAST year! If last year was great for you, you can expectantly look forward to 2017 to be even better! The question is, how do you get that all excitement and shininess into a package? Try a S.M.A.R.T.S. goal! A what? A Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timebound/Stretch goal! This is by no means an exhaustive list, but there are some great tools that you can use to plan your dreams and desires. One of my favorites is the SMART goal technique. I like it because it’s simple to use and something that, once I get my dream into a goal, it’s not something very complicated.

What’s your Plan? If you aim at nothing, you will achieve it. Every. Single. Time. Think about that. Maybe the reason you’re at the same riding spot or level and feel stuck is because you’re not reaching towards something else. You need to reach towards something else to move away from being stuck. Simple but deep, and so very true. Riding is so internal and close to your heart that if you don’t see the progress you’ve made – especially when it’s incrementally slow or feels like it’s sliding backwards in one area vs another – then you get really unfun in your thinking and riding.

How many times have you felt when you got off your horse that it didn’t go well, even though nothing really bad happened? That it was worse than before? You have that terrible feeling it was worse but you’re not really sure why exactly things went a little sideways but it's just a nagging feeling in the back of your mind. Then your thinking gets lost in the weeds and the Critique Monster shows up and just shreds your confidence and happiness in riding. The bummer is that all of that transfers to your horse because they are such perceptive beings and pick up on those deep seated feelings of unhappiness and lack of confidence as you are unhappy with them or lack confidence in them. It’s important to be able to go back to your plan and review the history and really see your success on paper. So, let's go through a way to get your rider creative juices flowing with a quick list of thought questions on setting a S.M.A.R.T.S goal for 2017! Also check out this webinar (warning - it's longer than 2 min) on the topic I did in FY2016 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N250SfP0kgg

Stay tuned for next week’s Two-minute Training Tip as we dive into your first SMART goal! You can always email me questions at revelationfarm1911@gmail.com or check out revelationfarm.com for upcoming events.

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